


Fǣgean

by orphan_account



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bondage, Fear, M/M, mild dubcon because vikings, ragnar is arrogant as all hell, tiny bit of breathplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:46:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after 1.08. Athelstan's a little shy of Ragnar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fǣgean

Ragnar comes at him with a rope and he thinks he’s meant to be hung upside down with the other sacrifices. His heart thuds and he imagines his blood staining the leaves below. Ragnar loops a circle of it around his neck and cocks an eyebrow at him.

“We’re leaving,” is all he says.

 He keeps the rope slack and Athelstan pretends it’s just for show, that as a failed sacrifice he’s due resentment from Leif’s fellows, but then Uppsala is behind and there is nothing to excuse how badly it chafes his neck.

=

Ragnar and Lagertha keep separate beds now. Athelstan heard the fight the first night back, them spitting Norse at each other so quick he couldn’t understand. Ragnar stumbled down the halls with an eye rapidly bruising and a bloody scratchmark at the side of his neck. He slept at the table with a horn of ale at close hand. Lagertha sleeps with Siggy and Gyda now for warmth. Ragnar sleeps like a dog on the hearth, his hand curled around Athelstan’s rope. Athelstan sits on either hearthstones that are too warm or paving stones that are too cold. Mostly he does not sleep. Once he tried to undo the cord from Ragnar’s fingers and Ragnar snarled and jerked him closer. Didn’t touch him. Never touches him.

 Athelstan sits on the hearth with his arms around his knees and prays out loud for the first time in months.

 =

Ragnar goes to Gotaland. Ragnar comes back from Gotaland a week later. He has thirty pounds of silver in tow and a new cloak embroidered with ravens. King Horik has gifted him with a dozen new arm rings and he looks every inch an earl. Lagertha won’t look him in the eye.

“Do you speak Frankish?”

Ragnar is red-eyed, listing to starboard; he has a mug of ale in his hand and a dead look in his eyes. His raven cloak is spotted with ashes. Athelstan has a knife in his hand, peeling turnips for tonight’s dinner. When he doesn’t answer immediately Ragnar grabs him by the rope and tugs enough that he has to step back not to choke. “Do you speak Frankish, priest?”

He could say no. Could have said no. Should have.

 “Good.” Ragnar embraces him from behind, gives him an ale-smelling peck on the cheek. “We’re going to Frankia.”

=

Athelstan does not have to row. Athelstan sits under the kerling with his arms free and his rope looped around his hands and he pretends he’s being brought back to England. The boat jounces and bleeds water over the side and he recalls the story of Jonah and the whale. The other men don’t look at him, or if they do their eyes slide right past as if he’s invisible. The only one to catch his eye is the wild one, the shipwright, and he bares his teeth when Athelstan doesn’t look down. Ragnar stands at the ship’s prow like he’s been tied to it and looks out over the horizon. Athelstan can see him smiling.

Frankia is as he remembered, green hills and monasteries huge enough to encompass all of Kattegat. No soldiers, for who would dare attack a monastery, here on the coast, away from the Saxons? Ragnar dances on the altar and Athelstan feels a short shock of pain rip through his heart.

“Priest,” Ragnar calls, “tell them they’re to come quietly.”

Ragnar takes none of the nuns but steals the bishop’s crown. The younger monks crowd into the boat next to Athelstan and glare at him. He holds up the rope as some kind of excuse.

The new slaves are dispatched with the moment the ship lands in Kattegat. Ragnar twists his hand around the rope and takes Athelstan back to the earl’s hall. He has the bishop’s crown in hand. He lets the rope drop and kneels in front of Lagertha. She crosses her arms over him and he lays the crown at her feet, his head parallel to her ankles. She puts her foot on his shoulder, considering, and then she pulls him up by the hair and slaps him in the face. When she kisses him it’s with the built-up anger of months, and the fury of her passions drives him down on the bed. She claws at him like a lioness and he is meek and apologetic as a lamb. 

Athelstan, forgotten in the corner like the crown on the floor, huddles around himself, pushes his hands against his ears, but he can’t drown out the sound of their lovemaking and he can’t drown out his desire. He curls up in a ball and hates himself for trying to listen.

=

Everything is as it was. Ragnar doesn’t curl his hand around the rope at night. Athelstan waits until the house is asleep and creeps into the empty kitchen. He finds a knife and a bowl of water and is midway through hacking at his hair when the hand on his shoulder comes. He spins and the knife writes a long red stripe down Ragnar’s arm. Ragnar pushes him against the table and takes the blade from his hand. Taps it against Athelstan’s forehead like he’s a child, smiles his usual smirk, and Athelstan snaps. The knife is loose enough in Ragnar’s hand that he can snatch it without fuss and Ragnar is either too surprised or too amused to catch him. The blunt blade is against Ragnar’s throat and there is a breathless, ragged silence.

“All right, little priest.” Ragnar speaks slowly. He stretches his neck away from the knife, puts his hands up, palms flat. “Is there something wrong?”

Athelstan wants to sit on the floor and sob like a child; instead he traces the blunt tip of the knife down Ragnar’s Adam’s apple.  “Why did you put the – the rope back on me?”

Ragnar shrugs. “Didn’t want you to leave.”

“Didn’t want me to – but you tried to kill me.” 

“Yes,” Ragnar says, and there is no trace of apology in his voice. “It's an honor I meant to grant you. That  still bothering you?”

Athelstan could kill him. Athelstan could leave him bleeding on the warm stones of the dark kitchen and run into the woods to be with God. Athelstan holds the knife steady as he can. 

“You took me from my home,” he says, slowly, carefully, so he won’t burst into hysterics.  “You killed my fellows. You made me your servant. You made me – “ He swallows. “You made me think you cared about me – ”

Ragnar blinks at him. “ _Think_?”

He puts his hand around the knife, not gripping, just around, his thumb on the hilt.

“Do you now what a sacrifice is, priest? You give unto the gods what is too precious for this earth. You give unto the gods something equal in weight to your desires. You give unto the gods what would be a loss if it was given to anyone else.”

He puts his hand on Athelstan’s lips, looks him straight in the eye.

“You don’t sacrifice what you don’t care for. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a sacrifice.”

He tugs it from Athelstan’s hand, tosses it to the floor.

“I’ve been rough with you. I’m sorry. Come here.”

Athelstan doesn’t move.

“Come here, priest,” Ragnar repeats, and when Athelstan doesn’t he strides up to him and locks him in a hug so tight Athelstan thinks he can hear his ribs crack. He puts his lips to Athelstan’s collarbone and sucks a kiss there and Athelstan gasps. 

“I care for you,” Ragnar says. He caresses Athelstan’s face, thumb running over his jawline, fingers resting on his lips. “D’you understand that? I care enough for you that I thought I’d have to give you away before my life could make sense again. Lagertha cares for you the same way.”

The knife is off the floor. The knife is in Ragnar’s hand. The knife is against Athelstan’s throat, the blunter edge pressing to his windpipe. Ragnar lays a kiss on Athelstan’s forehead. He scrapes the knife down Athelstan’s body, shucks off his tunic at the shoulders, and taps the tip over Athelstan’s heart.

“I love you enough to give you to the gods,” he says, and Athelstan buries his face in his hands. He’s paralyzed by fear, by the light touch of the knife skimming his flesh, and Ragnar plants another kiss on his neck. The knife clatters to the floor. Ragnar touches his face one last time and steps back, the rope around his wrist.

“Come back to bed, priest,” he says.

Athelstan stays awake on the floor next to them all night long.

=

 Ragnar buys him a new fur cloak for the onset of winter – it’s trimmed with white fox and fit for an earl. He won’t let Athelstan take the rope off. The few Frankish monks still left in Kattegat still give him suspicious glares as they trundle after their masters. Athelstan’s hair is growing back in clumps. Ragnar kisses him on the shoulder every morning and Lagertha strokes his hair. Athelstan has nightmares about them. Ragnar and the knife. Leif and the knife. The hanging bodies at Uppsala, the blue-black blood of baby goats sliming the altar. Athelstan denying Christ. Ragnar kissing him, again and again, while the blade snakes through his heart and leaves him gasping and sweat-damp on the floor.

 Ragnar catches him praying in the kitchen and drags him to his feet, puts a hand against his cheek. “Why do you need to pray?”

 “Because of you.”

 “Are you afraid of me?”

 Athelstan lifts his tunic. The places where Ragnar scratched him with the knife are white and fading fast, but they’re there. Ragnar sighs. I was just teasing.

 “Teasing,” Athelstan says flatly.

 Ragnar shrugs. “You put it against my throat first.”

 “I was afraid you were going to kill me,” Athelstan says, irritated.

 “And you should ever be afraid that I will,” Ragnar says, jaunty as can be. He cups Athelstan’s face in his hands. “Stop worrying. I’ve decided. I love you enough to want to keep you with me.”

 “But what about – ”

 “Uppsala was a mistake. Forget about Uppsala. Leif’s happy now. In any case, it only happens every nine years. Perhaps I’ll hate the sight of you in nine years. Perhaps we’ll be dead. Who knows?” He pokes Athelstan in the belly. “You are damnably beautiful, priest. I lied, I couldn’t hate you if I tried.”

 Athelstan turns away, annoyed. Ragnar catches him by the rope and pulls him close. “What do you want me to do?”

 “Take the rope off.”

 “Of course not. You’ll run.”

 “I won’t run.”

 “And I won’t kill you. I can trust your word, but you won’t trust mine?” He chucks Athelstan under the chin. “Maybe I should beat you until I get bored. Would that convince you? I could throw you out to sleep with the dogs, or send you to live with Floki until I forget I cared about you in the first place. Though if you’re afraid of dying, Floki’s not the best person to be around.”

 Athelstan tries to turn again but Ragnar has other ideas. He wraps the rope around Athelstan’s wrists, ties it tight. Ragnar’s breath on his neck is sweet and wicked and his kiss is ferocious, makes Athelstan stagger back against the wall. Ragnar laughs in his ear and rubs his stubbled cheek on Athelstan’s. His embrace is warm and inviting. Not frightening at all, if Athelstan doesn’t think. Athelstan overthinks. He takes a great deep breath against Ragnar’s shoulder.

 “Odin and Thor and Frey and the rest of them can freeze their arses off in Niflheim for all I care.” Ragnar tips Athelstan’s head up and for a moment his eyes are deadly serious. He brushes his thumb across Athelstan’s cheek. “I’m sorry I tried to give you to them. Believe that. I am sorry you’re so afraid all the time. I am sorry.”

He sits, suddenly, and Athelstan falls into his lap. He lies down on the stone floor and Athelstan sits on his chest and looks at him. Ragnar has his hands above his head and his eyes are only half open. He touches Athelstan’s cheek and then, very slowly, begins to move his hips. Athelstan, despite himself, hooks his legs on either side of Ragnar’s and closes his eyes. He’s still afraid, but the cloak Ragnar bought him is warm around his shoulders and the rope is tight enough around his wrists to make him doubt Ragnar’s love. If he jerks his hands too hard he’ll choke himself.

 Ragnar only stops moving when Athelstan is blushing dark and trying to figure out how he can hold his hands against his reddened face. He very carefully sits up, sits up so that Athelstan slides off his lap, and Ragnar turns him over. Turns him over and unhooks the cloak, tosses it in a bundle to the side. He peels up Athelstan’s  tunic and rubs his stubbled face down Athelstan’s back, kisses him from shoulder to the bottom of his spine and hums as he does it. Athelstan shivers against the floor.  

 “Ragnar,” he says, unsure of what else to say.

 Ragnar murmurs against his back. “Tell me what you want, priest.”

Athelstan would be content to be pushed against the floor and kissed like this for the rest of the night, but there is a deeper hunger stirring within him and Ragnar seems to sense it. He adjusts Athelstan so he’s on his elbows and knees, reaches to skim a finger over his cock and balls, and Athelstan jolts into his hand. The rope gives him a warning squeeze and he stops, his body humming, Ragnar’s fingers light on his cock and light on his back. He stays still while Ragnar touches him, and lets out a huff of disappointment when Ragnar licks his shoulder and stands up. He lies facedown and breathes in the scent of the stones. 

He doesn’t expect the oil – it’s cold against him and the first finger makes him cry out with the novelty of it. Ragnar purrs against his shoulder, probably trying to soothe him, but Athelstan cannot be soothed. He feels taut as a bowstring. He feels the sacrificial blade a whisper away from his throat and the second finger makes him drop his head down and shiver.

“I love you, priest,” Ragnar says into his neck.

He twists his fingers and somehow it makes Athelstan jolt with pleasure. He gasps around the tightening rope, tries to hold himself still, but Ragnar twists his fingers again and again and he’s left choking. Ragnar pulls his head up, making him arch his back, making him draw his hands in, and he can breathe again. The third finger burns and for a moment he thinks he’s safe, that Ragnar hates him, but then Ragnar gently-gently eases his cock into Athelstan and he knows, oh God, he knows that Ragnar loves him, knows by the breath on the back of his neck and the small satisfied sounds he’s making and the gentleness, the sweetness, with which he brushes Athelstan’s shoulders.

Athelstan moves back onto Ragnar’s cock, though it makes him feel dizzyingly full, though it makes him fear a table sticky with blood. Pleasure dances up his spine. Ragnar’s hands flow down his back like water. He is stroked and kissed and petted and when Ragnar wraps his hand around his cock he chokes himself again. He’ll be hung up for a sacrifice with the other swinging bodies and his blood will fall like rain on the leaves below.

He doesn’t care.

Ragnar finishes inside of him and then, before he can catch his breath, flips him over to lick at his balls and run his fingers over Athelstan’s swollen cockhead. Athelstan’s orgasm hits him suddenly, an arrow from the blue, and when he cries out Ragnar takes his too-sensitive cock in his mouth and watches him writhe. He spits Athelstan’s come on the floor and stands, leaving him breathless and shaking.

Athelstan closes his eyes, puts his bound hands to his face. When he feels the steel on his throat he stays very, very still.

Ragnar cuts the rope.

Ragnar stands up. Stands over him like a god. He is a god and Athelstan has been brought to his presence. Athelstan understands. He’s safe. He’s forever safe. He can feel his blood dripping on the leaves below but it’s no longer frightening and he sits up to rest his head on Ragnar’s thigh.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No,” Athelstan says into Ragnar’s thigh. He’s telling the truth.

Ragnar cards his fingers through Athelstan’s hair, pulls him up to stand.

“I love you, priest,” he says.

The knife glints in his hand.

Athelstan looks down at his chest. There is a rose blooming just above his heart. He can’t seem to move, and his mouth tastes of copper.

Ragnar kisses the top of his head, where the hair has grown back in clumps.

“I’m sorry I _tried_ to give you to the gods,” he says. “I should have just done it.”

He tosses the knife away; it lands on the fox-lined cloak, stains it red. He holds Athelstan to his chest, and sings him down to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
> Not really.
> 
> According to my Old English dictionary, title can mean either _rejoicing_ or _doomed to die._
> 
>  
> 
> [Soundtrack.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqF8_UcUQdQ)


End file.
